The thing is, you see, I knew him.
I know, I know. Now that he’s gone, all kinds of people are going to be coming out of the woodwork and claiming that they were best friends with Michael Jackson.
So, just for the record, I wasn’t as good a friend of Michael’s as, say, Elizabeth Taylor. But I think I knew him better than some of the people Larry King had on. In terms of actual familiarity with the King of Pop, I’d put myself in between Donna Summer and former M-TV VJ John Norris.
I knew Mike Jackson, as I always called him, for more than 30 years. We met at the U.S. Naval Base in Subic Bay, Philippines while we were both serving with the United States Marine Corps.
Let me explain: 1978 was kind of an odd time to be in the military. The Vietnam War was over, the draft had ended, and the Cold War was heating up again, though that seemed more likely to be fought with missiles than with Marines. Enlisting in the service was like joining the Foreign Legion. You didn’t ask a lot of questions about why someone was there.
But after we got to be friends, Mike told me he joined up to get away from his dad and Berry Gordy, who had, between the two of them, tried to control every aspect of his life since he first began performing at age 5. I’d been to a good college and seemed headed for law school but I guess I still had something to prove, too. In a way, we were both misfits.
The first time I saw Mike I was on the losing side of a bar fight in Olongapo, the garrison town across the bay, with a big Okie farmboy called Howser. He’d called me “professor” once too often and I’d hauled off and slugged him. Big mistake.
Howser had already broken one of my teeth and busted my nose. He might have killed me if Mike hadn’t stepped in between us and started dancing. He swiveled his hips, moonwalked, and did that point-first-one-way-and-then-the-other move that became so famous. Poor Howser couldn’t figure out what was going on. He tried to hit Mike, too, but Mike was too fast and finally Howser just left. Michael kept dancing for a bit. He was wily.
Afterwards, he told me that he respected me for sticking up for myself. I guess he saw me as a big brother, even though I could hardly sing and couldn’t dance at all.
After I left the fleet, Mike and I went our separate ways. I went to law school like I was supposed to, got married, and had a couple of kids whose musical tastes didn’t include Michael Jackson. Telling them we’d been together in the Marines was like saying I’d been in the Army with Fred Astaire or the Coast Guard with Rudy Vallee. They couldn’t have cared less. Mike stayed in for another 6 months or so and then mustered out to begin the solo career that everyone knows about.
At first, we tried to get together regularly (in those days, I was doing a fair amount of business with a client in Reseda, not far from Jackson’s Encino home.) We’d spend an afternoon at the local Olive Garden talking about the usual things old friends talk about when they get together: work, family, hobbies. One year, I’d made partner, the next, he’d sold 750 millions copies of “Thriller;” Gretchen and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, Mike got involved in a relationship with a gal he met at the dermatologist’s; I had a mid-life crisis and bought a sports car, Mike had decided to live forever and was sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And so it went. Year after year.
(My wife, I have to admit, never really warmed up to Mike. I think Gretchen was a little ticked off when Mike made Madonna, Uri Geller, and the Sultan of Brunei the godparents of his son Blanket instead of us. She just didn’t understand show business.)
After a while, as is so often the case, our friendship dwindled down to just an annual exchange of Christmas cards. Still, Mike’s card did help us keep up with the changes in his life: Mike with Emmanuel Lewis, Mike with Brooke Shields, Mike with Lisa Marie Presley, Mike with a dancing clown robot, Mike with Bubbles the Chimp…
My motto is “Live and Let Live.” Maybe that’s why Mike and I got along so well. But I have to admit that last one threw me for a loop, so much so that I called him up. “Mike,” I said, “What’s the deal with Bubbles?” You see, back in the Philippines, Mike was always terrified of the monkeys that would hang around the base eating garbage. Anyway, he laughed and said that Bubbles was different. Bubbles was as high above those monkeys in the Philippines on the evolutionary ladder as you or I.
Of course, the years took their toll. My midsection got a little fatter and Mike’s nose got thinner. We both started wearing clothes with a lot of zippers. Somehow they’re just easier to get on and off. And even some things that seemed permanent proved transient. Gretchen and I split up after the kids went off to college. Mike’s “Invincible” album was a critical and commercial failure.
The last time I heard from Mike was late last year. He’d seen in a Marine Corps newsletter that Howser, the Okie who gave me a hard time back in Subic Bay, had died. There weren’t a lot of details just something about a tractor and a downed power line and a drainage ditch and tornado. And, yes, alcohol was involved. Anyway, Mike said that’s not how he wanted to go. I won’t tell you what he said after that. One of the lessons of Michael Jackson’s life is that some things should probably stay private.
Semper Fi, Mike.
